EDITORIAL

By April 15, 2019Editorial, News

Teach candidates lessons in accountability

THE Commission on Elections is clearly but vainly trying to enforce the laws on campaign activities and in the use of propaganda materials with its limited resources and influence. Its hastily organized Oplan Baklas already tried to send the message that it is serious about making candidates account for their flagrant violations of the rules on campaign.

But seeing how the candidates respond, continue to deliberately flout the law, thumbing their noses at the Comelec, refusing to voluntarily remove and dismantle their oversized tarpaulins in areas outside designated common areas, one cannot but wonder why those who profess to be men and women of integrity have no qualms about violating our laws that will make them public servants.

It’s time our candidates wanting to be given the privilege to become public servants show that they are willing to be accountable. And Comelec must help in this effort. All candidates must be required to acknowledge and sign a document that says they are aware of the laws and will accept accountability for violations. Forget about holding peace covenants, no candidate and not even voters are taking the covenants seriously. It’s all a hypocritical show of faith.

Let the candidates realize that their signatures will make or unmake them.  That’s the bottom line for them to learn about public accountability.  

Bully of the world

PRESIDENTIAL spokesman Salvador Panelo was damn right.  The five American senators telling the Duterte administration to release Leila de Lima from detention were off-key.  “They have no business telling us what to do as we have our own laws that are lawfully at work,” thundered Panelo. De Lima is behind bars as a drug dealer suspect.  The five senators missed a simple logic.  What if Panelo also told the friggin’ five to impeach President Trump?  Would they not also raise hell, and, perhaps, ask for the head of Panelo for meddling in America’s affairs? 

America has long been like that: bully of the world.  Their supremacist thinking continues to make them believe they are the world’s policemen.  No wonder they make it a habit to export wars.  They haven’t learned their lessons—as in their embarrassing defeat in the Vietnam War. Wake up, Uncle Sam.   

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